Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1887-06-17
ANEW TYPE OF MAN.
The Western American Species and Its Posi-
BILE Future Development.
Charles D. Warner in Harper's

Charles D. Warner in Harper's
Out somewhere on the Santa Fe route
where the desert of one day was like the
desert of the day before and the Pullman
car rolls and swings over the wide waste
beneath the blue sky day after day, under
its black flag of smoke, in the early gray
of morning, when the men were waiting
| their turns at the ablution bowls, slip of
| boy, ssperhaps aged Z, stood balancing
himself on his little legs, clad in knicker-
bockers. biding his time with all the non
chalance of an old campaigner. How
did you sleep, cap?" askeda well-meaning
elderly gentleman. "Well, thank you"
was the dignifed response, ''as 1 always
do on a sleeping car" Always does?
| Great Horrors. Hardly out of his swad
ding clothes, and yet he always sleeps
well in a sleeper! Was he born on the
wheels? was he Graded in Pullmans He
has always been in motion, probably; he
was started at 80 miles an hour, no doubt,
this marvellous boy of new era. He was
not born in house at rest, but the loco
motive snatohed him along with a shrek
| and roar before his eyes were fairly
| open, and he was rocked in section"
and his first sensation of life was that of
moving rapidly over vast arid spaces,
|
The effort of quick and easy locomotion
on character may have been noted before,
but it seems that here is the production of
new sort of man, the direct product of
our railway era. It is not simply that this
boy is mature, but he must be different
and nobler sort of boy than one born,
say at home or on canal-boat' for
whether he was born on the rail or not, he
| belongs to the railway system OF c1vlllza-
ton. Before he gets into trousers he is
old in experience, and he has disco united
many of the novelties that usually break
gradually on the pilgrim in this world.
He belongs to the new expansive race
that must live In motion, whose proper
home is the Pullman (which will probably
be improved in time into Justices,
| sweet-smellipg, we'll -aired bedroom) and
whose domestic life will be on the wing,
so to speak. The interstate commerce
bill will pass him along without friction
from end to end of the Union and perhaps
a uniform divorce law will enable him to
change his marital relations at any place
| where he happens to dine
This promising lad is only faint init
nation of what we are all coming to when
we fully acquire the freedom of the con
! tinent, and come into that expansiveness
| ol IeIllHS ana OF IanSu WHICH cnardC-
terige5 the great West. l. is a burst of
| joyous exuheranGe that comes from the
sense of an illimitable horizon. 1t shows
itself in the tender words of local news.
paper at Bowie, Ariz., on the death of
| beloved citizen:
Death loves shining mark, and she
hit a dandy when she turned loose on
jim" And also in the closing words of a
New Mexico obituary, which the Kansas
| Magazine quotes: "Her tired spirit was
released from the pain-racking body and
soard aloft to eternal glory at 4:30, Denver
| time" We die, as it were, in motion, as
we sleep, and there is nowhere any bound
airy to our expansion. Perhaps we shall
never again know any rest as we now IN
| derstand the term-rest being only change
| of motion-and we shall not be able to
sleep except on the cars, and whether we
| die by Denver time or by the ninetieth
meridian, we shall only change our time.
Blessed be this slip of boy who is a man
before he is an infant, aud teaches US
what rapid transit can do for our race!
The only thing that can possibly hinder
US in our progress will be second child
! hood: we have abolished first.